# git clean -X behaviour when .gitignore has sub-directory entries

1 messages from 2010-07-16 to 2010-07-16. Participants: Jean-Philippe Gariépy.
Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/24417

## Jean-Philippe Gariépy, 2010-07-16 19:05

Subject: git clean -X behaviour when .gitignore has sub-directory entries
Message-ID: <4C40AD89.1070005@nuecho.com>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/4C40AD89.1070005%40nuecho.com

```
Hi,

When using sub-directory entries in .gitignore, "git clean -X" doesn't 
clean the ignored sub-directory.

$ git init test
Initialized empty Git repository in /home/jpgariep/git/test/.git/
$ cd test/
$ mkdir -p a/b/c
$ touch a/b/c/test
$ echo '/a/b/' > .gitignore
$ git add .gitignore
$ git commit -m "Added .gitignore."
[master (root-commit) 94e2825] Added .gitignore.
  1 files changed, 1 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
  create mode 100644 .gitignore
$ git status
# On branch master
nothing to commit (working directory clean)
$ git clean -X -d -f
$ ls a
b

Why is b still there?


Thanks.

-- 
Jean-Philippe Gariépy

```
